Michel Gondry: je t’aime

I’m not actually supposed to write about Be Kind Rewind yet. Not until May 15th in fact. But my editor (commenter Remko) can be assured: a review this is not. It’s a declaration.

Michel, Michel… I just wish I could live in your head. Share your brain, see the world as you do. I want to be as wildly creative, and have as much fun as you do creating. Making something where first there was only a spark of imagination.

I owe you an apology, too. When I first saw and fell in love with Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, I gave all the credit to Charlie Kaufman. I empathized with Kaufman, because if Adaptation is to believed, he’s a struggler like I am, a laborer, someone for whom creation is hard, sometimes excruciating, it’s work. Kaufman reassures me that just because I sometimes yell in frustration at dear old Larry because a sentence won’t come out right, doesn’t mean I should give up. I’ll never get to his level, but it’s a comfort, somehow, to know even geniuses can have a hard time.

Weekend Double Feature: Ripley

I know, I know, Wednesday very early morning is a bit late for a weekend double feature, but I had some trouble finding a suitable pair. I could have gone for McCabe and Mrs. Miller/Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, but truth be told, they don’t have that much in common, aside both being slow, meandering westerns from the early seventies. As for pairing the latter with I’m Not There, the Billy the Kid segment might have sprung from the Peckinpah movie, but it has very little in common with it. I considered Plein Soleil/The Lady From Shanghai, for the boat scenes, mostly, but I couldn’t find many other correspondances. After all, Orson Welles and his embarrassing Irish brogue want the lady in that movie, and doesn’t care about the money, while Ripley in Plein Soleil only wants the lady because she’s part of the lifestyle he aspires to.

Of course, the logical pairing for Plein Soleil is The Talented Mr. Ripley, the director of which, Anthony Minghella, sadly passed on yesterday. While that’s the double feature I’d recommend, I already discussed it a while ago, and I’d like the weekend double features to include at least one truly new feature. And so, tonight, I watched Ripley Under Ground.